New (and affordable) at the Art Association

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The latest issue of Splash!, the Art Association’s magazine, highlights upcoming summer classes and workshops provided by the Art Association, Dancers’ Workshop and the Off Square Theater Company.

The Art Association, one of the Center for the Art’s largest tenant, has been serving  Jackson for more than four decades. Their spaces include a ceramics studio, a 3D studio with glasswork and silversmithing resources, the ArtSpace galleries, a photo lab, a digital arts lab, the Borshell drawing studio, and a painting studio. Foundry equipment for aluminum and bronze pouring has just been brought back from an off-site facility for sculpture classes to begin next fall. A newly acquired Takach 24-by-48-inch table top etching press is now located in the Borshell drawing studio.

About the press, studio manager and printmaking teacher Clint Green said, “We are trying to incorporate non-toxic techniques, which is kind of a new way of looking at printmaking.” The water-based inks they use do not dry too quickly or unevenly, two problems that have made more toxic inks popular in the past, he said.

The YARD program has recently been “using traditional Japanese techniques to prepare woodblocks” and make mostly monochromatic prints, Green said. “They have been working pretty diligently to get a series done that they can get framed and into their new show.”

The YARD show will run from May 22-29 in the main ArtSpace gallery.
Children’s art camps will be using the press this summer during their printmaking weeks, July 7-11 for grades K-3 and July 28-August 1 for grades 4-6. In the future, Green hopes to bring in three printmakers a year for visiting artist workshops. The press is currently available for use by members who have already received instruction on how to use it, or who are experienced printmakers. A calendar has been posted so people can sign up for a four hour block of time to use the press for $35. Unlimited use is available for $100 per month.

A new group of ceramicists, the Teton Mud Pots, are “studio users and local potters” who want to support the ceramics community by “fundraising for things like field trips, equipment, scholarships, and guest artists,” said ceramics director Sam Dowd. Their last pottery sale raised $1300 in scholarship money. More formal scholarship requirements are expected next year, but Dowd said that money currently goes to “people who are hard working and would need a little help” in order to attend one of the workshops.
The classes and workshops might be out of a starving artists’ price range, but there are other ways to utilize the space.

Local painter Tom Woodhouse works in the painting studio nearly every day. “I think there are ways to use the facility that are really inexpensive, and accessible to pretty much anyone in this town who is committed to making their art,” he said. He uses the studio for about a dollar a day.

“If you were looking to buy a studio punch card, April and May would be good months to do it,” said Green. During some summer months the painting studio and other spaces are occupied by visiting artist workshops, but they will be mostly unoccupied during the off-season. A newly offered all-studio pass costs $125 per month, which includes access to drawing, painting, silversmithing, ceramics, dark room, and printmaking open studio hours. Art Association members can buy passes to any of the studios they maintain in the Center. Details are available in Splash! or online at www.artassociation.org.

Another way to get involved is through Debauchery and Art. Education director Amy Larkin started the group as a way to get artists together to inspire and interpret each other’s art. Each month a new theme is chosen, and each artist captures their reflections on the theme in a piece of art, or just shares their thoughts about it at the next month’s meeting.

“It’s a venue that is open to artists of all media, skill level, and interest,” Larkin said. “It really has been bringing in all kinds of artists … who really haven’t used the Center. Since then they have become members, entered shows and started to use the space.”
The theme for the next Debauchery and Art meeting is “if you had to display your life in reverse.” Anyone can come with art, or thoughts, relating to the theme. The next meeting is at 6:30 p.m. on April 25 in the painting studio. There are usually snacks and beer.

For more information on the Art Association’s programming, and work-exchange or scholarship info, call 733-6379.

Photo by THOMAS STIMPSON
Dan Douthot using the Art Association’s new printing press.

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New (and affordable) at the Art Association | Planet JH News Article: Arts Beat

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